World's Most Expensive Restaurants
	What's the recipe for dining at one of the world's most expensive restaurants? Months on a waiting list and Herculean wallet strength. Oh, and a healthy appetite. Top-notch restaurants have never been this good.
What's the recipe for dining at one of the world's most expensive restaurants? Months on a waiting list and Herculean wallet strength. Oh, and a healthy appetite. Top-notch restaurants have never been this good. "I think that for a lot of reasons, we have been going through a world revolution in the improvement of our food at every level," says Tim Zagat , creator and publisher, with his wife Nina, of the New York-based restaurant-rating guide Zagat Survey . "It has to do with fundamentals. You can now get all kinds of foods from all over the world--the ability to pack and ship food is constantly improving. The audience for dining is increasingly sophisticated--someone from Dubuque knows what food in New York, London and Paris restaurants is supposed to look like. Finally, the people doing the cooking have become respected and in some cases celebrities." The result is that there are now more places than ever before to eat--and spend--lavishly. One of the best is in Japan. For the second year in a row, the top restaurant on our list of the world's most expensive restaurants is Aragawa , a little steak house in Tokyo's Shinbashi district. Like many of Japan's high-end, hidden restaurants, it doesn't have a Web site or grandiose decor. But reservations are excruciatingly hard to come by, and the tab reliably starts at $370--per person. But the platters of Wagyu beef (what we call Kobe), which is sourced from only one local farm and served simply with pepper and mustard, make the expense worthwhile. "In Japan, the whole restaurant business model is completely different," says Mitchell Davis , vice president of communications at the James Beard Foundation in Manhattan. Restaurants are operated like clubs, located in obscure office buildings--and very picky about their customers. "I've sent people for whom money is no object to the best places in Japan, and they can't get in because they are Westerners. And once inside, it's disconcerting. You never know when you're in a particular place if dinner is going to be $50 or $1,000." Davis recalls doing an event in Japan with chef Daniel Boulud and going to see the most revered sushi chef in Japan. "We show up at some ugly, nondescript office building from the 1970s, walk past a fire extinguisher and a cigarette machine, and into this place that presumes to be a $500 sushi restaurant," he says. "Of course, we had 20 one-piece courses, sushi, sashimi, plain as anything, and it was delicious. But it was over $600 per person." They got off easy. "In the Japanese food culture, prices can easily run way over $1,000 a person," Zagat says. For sushi, which is expensive to preserve and prepare, that makes sense. So what explains the price tag at Aragawa, which just serves steak? "I've seen Wagyu beef for sale at underground grocery stores in Japan," Davis says. "It's $200 a pound. If you're feeding your cows sake and massaging them all day that's what you get." In Pictures - World's Most Expensive Restaurants External Source - For the complete article click here Source - Forbes